An Introduction

At least, I used to love to read. As a kid, I used to go to the library every week and take out as many books as I was allowed (eight, because my parents said I had to take out two for my little brother who didn’t want to come with me to the library but also never bothered to read them) and then read them all within a week and go back every Saturday.

It used to be so much easier to read then.

I’m not convinced it’s about having more time. To be honest, I used to have even less free time than I do now – between homework and extra-curriculars and actually having friends with free time, I was one of those kids who was always on the go.

And then I got older. And I got – maybe not more sad, because my teen years were a morass of undiagnosed depression & bullying, but I had the freedom to act on my sadness in ways that I wasn’t able to as a child.

I’m getting better. That’s what my doctors and my mother tell me, any rate. But I still miss the person I used to be. The kind of person who could feel excited and enjoyed magic and could lose hours in a book. Someone who was happy, sometimes, and sad sometimes, and more than just tired.

It’s been a long time since I felt not-tired.

I realised that last year I read less than 15 books. That’s more than a lot of people, I know, but I used to be 8 books a week. I used to like reading.